I’m a passionate person. If something interests me or affects me, I exhaust the available information to learn as much as I can about it. I’ve always avoided learning about political matters because I didn’t feel them affect my day to day life. I took for granted that more knowledgable people would keep things in line and I focused my energy elsewhere. I saw people get passionate about politics the same way I would get passionate about the Gospel and, of late, using food as your medicine, and I didn’t want to get caught up in it. However, this political season has pushed its way into my world to the point of not being able to ignore it. People are getting weird and I try to check out their sources. I want to see things from their perspective to compare it with mine. Consequently, I’m more informed. Being informed leads to shock and, at times, disgust. The more I see, the more I have something to say.

Politics began creeping into my awareness in the form of dissenting opinions of people I would consider friends. I would see their social media feed, the brazen negativity from otherwise positive people, and I would do a bit of research to gauge their accuracy and see what was getting them so worked up. Barely scratching the surface of the easily accessed information revealed the inaccuracy of my friends’ shared opinions and hurt my respect for them. It stained everything else they said. Including the things with which I would normally agree.

This had me double-checking information that I would normally take at face value, which isn’t a bad thing for me. However, if my friendship and/or respect is important to these people, then it was a bad thing for them. I became disappointed and increasingly sober. It wasn’t humorous in the absurdity. It was disheartening and scary. How could they not see it?

I found myself wanting to create distance so that I wouldn’t be associated with their politics, but I didn’t do a good enough job. Uncertain, uninformed, and, admittedly, unthinking friends, who didn’t know which direction to vote, would check out my posts, find nothing, and then gravitate to my friends’ posts who were more vocal. Someone came up to me and told me they voted for Trump because my friend made such a good case for why she was voting for him. My silence looked like my agreement. I learned a valuable lesson. Silence is not always silent.

Since then, that same friend confided that she regrets looking to my friends for voting direction and wishes she could take it back. She gained her independence through this, though. I know she’s not alone. And I’m sorry she trusted me so much that my associations were good enough for her. I need to be more careful about my associations or at least let my feelings be known.

I watched that man do everything possible to sink the ship on which he was sailing while my friends and fellow Christians made excuses for his behavior and patched up his holes. He was vulgar and sexually predatory and they would say “That was ten years ago.” He would mock a disabled man and they would say, “That’s just how he makes fun of people.” He would lie and they would say, “He’s just a colorful communicator.” He would talk about women saying they were “disgusting”. I watched him wish “the good old days” back as a protestor called him out on his KKK approval. “What good old days?” I wondered.

“In the good old days this doesn’t happen because they used to treat them very, very rough. And when they protested once, you know, they would not do it again so easily. …I like to punch him in the face, I’ll tell you what. I love the old days. You know what they use to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on stretcher, folks. That’s true. …In the good old days, they’d rip him out of that seat so fast…. In the good old days, law enforcement acted a lot quicker than this. A lot quicker. …I am the law and order candidate.” – Donald Trump in response to protestors at his rallies. Click here to see his words against the backdrop of “the good old days” as portrayed by the documentary “13th”. I highly recommend watching the whole documentary.

I don’t want to talk about him anymore.

I couldn’t believe he was actually elected. I was at work the following day and more than once, I escaped to the bathroom to cry privately when those around me were celebrating. I didn’t cry because he won. I cried because of what his win said about our country. I was no longer blind and what I saw broke my heart. I wanted this insanity to be over and for us to move on to a different kind of challenge, but it’s not over and I refuse to “normalize” what is abnormal and horridly destructive. I live in a very conservative part of the country. I’m surrounded by people who voted for him. I have kept my mouth shut because nobody has asked me what I think. I’m the quiet one. But as I sit quietly, I can’t believe that no one is speaking up. It makes me feel alone.

Do they not read the news? Oh, yeah. They don’t trust the news. Real things are happening, things they could do something about, causes they could support, they could be lifting these babies up in prayer… and they don’t watch the news. They don’t read the articles. They’re robots, but who is the programmer?

You know what’s most disturbing to me? A lot of his supporters are self-proclaimed Christians. They’re exalting him as though he’s going to do something to make their lives better. Do they think he’s going to get them more money? At what cost? Isn’t the love of money the root of all evil? Do they think he’s going to make them safer? He uses props and constructs a show like there are no consequences to the masquerade fallout. He’s used to a world where there is no such thing as “bad press”. If they’re talking about you, then you still get ratings. He calls himself “the ratings machine”. But this isn’t a show.

How can a Christian be a nationalist? We are no better than anyone else and thinking that God loves Americans more than any other country is asinine. I’m not saying that I don’t love my country or that I want to live somewhere else. I’m just saying that we are not better than anyone else and it’s more patriotic and Godly to embrace the outcasts and outsiders, and provide shelter for the war wrecked. Hypocrisy is the alternative. Read the words on our Statue of Liberty:

We, both as Americans and as Christians, are supposed to be a safe place. We, as Christians, are supposed to be gentle and kind. This man is dolling out lies and inconsistencies like a pedophile in an ice cream truck and the gullible are intoxicated by his schoolyard tune of dirty lyrics. They’re starstruck. They think this guy is going to get them something. Meanwhile, they sacrifice their witness and say things they can never take back.

I’m a Christian and I’m not like them.

I don’t support protesting him with violence, by defacing or misrepresenting the flag, or by hurting other people, and I don’t support the divisions. I don’t even support divisions between countries, colors, languages, genders, or any other differences. I’m struggling to know how to navigate this time in our history, but I know enlightenment can come from what appears to be darkness.

The whole world is watching us right now. Don’t stand down. Let love win.

I spoke at a church conference a few years back and had an interaction I had with the pastor that has been replaying itself in my head since. For reasons beyond me, I always seem to end up speaking at churches that are ripping themselves apart over the meaning and application of grace. They have people who are barely clinging to the implied hope of an explicit Gospel on one side and people who are trying to maintain some form of orderly structure that resembles a religious institution in their communities on the other side. Then, here comes me: this incredibly small person with a giant message of grace and a free spirit with no real respect for structure or status.

My message was always the same. When I needed a Savior to forgive my sins, standards and structure weren’t the answer. They can alter behavior, but not the heart. They can make you pass human inspection, but not the Holy Spirit’s. You need Jesus, even at the expense of getting nothing else in the religious realm right. As a matter of fact, all the religiosity, structure, and status are used to crush the one who needs Jesus, not lift him up. So, yeah, I have no workable respect for religious status or man-made structure.

The church was located in gorgeous Massachusetts. I used to live on the Cape and left a bit of my soul there, so any chance I can get back there, I jump on it. The visit was timely for me because it wasn’t long after the Boston Marathon bombing and I wanted to be close to others who had the same hurting New England heart that I had.

We were sitting in a Mexican restaurant having lunch when the topic of the bombing came up. In preparation for speaking, the potency of grace was paramount in my own mind. The two subjects rolled around together in my mind in the days and weeks leading up to my speaking engagement. The one surviving bomber was only eighteen, the same age as my oldest daughter. I could be his mother. He ran over his big brother trying to get away. He hid and bled out while, undoubtedly, trying to reaffirm his mission as the events and his fate played over and over in his mind. I have been the villain and I know the hell it can be. My heart, as a mother, broke for him. My heart as a grace recipient had hope for him.

I said as much in response to a comment the pastor made about the young man. My burrito was steaming up at me from my plate and I could feel the screeching halt of conversation as I took a bite. I looked up to see the pastor and his wife exchange raised eyebrows. They turned the subject quickly and I ate in silence wondering where the limits of grace were supposed to be, even for a grace preaching pastor. He was losing half his congregation because of his message about God’s love, but I found his faith limit within the first ten minutes of meeting him. All I thought, for the rest of my time with them, is about how they could possibly embrace anything I have to say if I’m preaching an unconditional love to a conditioned congregation.

My question then and my question still is this: If grace is not for everyone, then who is it for?

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.-Romans 13:1 NIV

You have a choice regarding how you look at life. You can choose fear or faith. You can’t have both. You can’t choose fear when it socially suits you in your pursuit of relevance, only to choose faith when the emotional fork-in-the-road is over. Decide who you are, what or Whom you serve, or forever become an empty reflection of an unthinking social media ticker. One day they abhor divisive talk and the next day they bait a divisive discussion. One day they choose left, then the wind changes direction and they are the biggest advocate for the right. Repugn the weathercock.

They burn with fear and call it passion. What will become of all of their fear-talk and ultimatums when this is over? The braveheart would fight to the death. They present as warriors for their cause when they’re behind the safety of a screen, but time and change turn them into weak and insipid pawns. They won’t fight to the death, they’ll normalize it and find some other parade float to ride on.

Choose faith. You already know Who wins. What is your problem? Don’t you recognize fear-mongers taunt by now? They report as though there is no God. They speak as though He cannot hear. They flirt with your need for something meaningful and call you away from your First Love. The easily manipulated take a bite like they’ve been invited to a King’s feast. Run from them. Fear’s secret lovers think they know how this is going to turn out. They confuse satire for breaking news and sing karaoke quality gossip like they’re going to change the lives of their listeners.

Make hope your center of gravity. Seal out irrational sensationalism. Don’t be a cheap conduit of panicked ultimatums. There are forces that want to pit us against one another, but we are not naturally inclined to be like that. We don’t look for differences, we look for similarities. But, when presented with requisitions and threats of impending doom, we are forced to consider the faulty logic and reject the weak-minded fuel of the mob mentality.

Pray. Do it with certainty that God has authority. Pray with faith based on the fact that He gets His way. Pray without doubting and if you have people in your life who make you forget, then silence their voices by blocking their path to your door. It’s weird seasons like this that are a sieve to catch the unstable and uneducated. You can’t talk sense to a nonthinker, they’ll just dumb down your efforts. The intelligent publicly ignore the nonsense of fools and privately pray for the prevalence of unity, freedom, intelligence, and truth. Go down in history as an advocate for wisdom and peace. Be a Rock-anchored beacon and let the storm kick up your hair, making you all the more beautiful.

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.– James 1:5-8 ESV

It’s hard for me to not speak up when someone is wrong. There’s a place for it, undoubtedly, but it’s a tender, almost sacred thing. You can’t always assert your way even if you think, or are convinced and convicted, that your way is right.

Dear Convinced & Convicted, flip the roles. Can you imagine someone trying to talk sense to you? It would make you indignant. It would flare up and elevate you on a fiery pillar of pride. Or thereabouts.

What good can come from your mouth when you are breathing in your own righteous smoke? How can you be tender if you’re burning with contempt?

Don’t respond to the stupidity of a fool; you’ll only look foolish yourself.-Proverbs 26:4 MSG

Silently mute the line and slip away. Unfollow, unfriend, or talk about something else. Turn it off or turn the channel. Do whatever you have to do to not get baited into the foolish discussions.

People compile conspiracies and lure the unthinking and the unstudied with fear as their bait. You can’t eat fear. Fear cannot sustain you.

A proverb quoted by fools is limp as a wet noodle.-Proverbs 26:7 MSG

They mix bits of the truth with their sensationalized scenarios. They imply that nothing can be trusted while asserting their trustworthiness. They make you afraid so they can keep you at their feet. Even when they speak the truth, it’s muddied by the rest of the nonsense they use to bait your attention and recalibrate your moral compass.

Loafers say, “It’s dangerous out there! Tigers are prowling the streets!” and then pull the covers back over their heads.-Proverbs 26:13 MSG

It seems like the most dedicated to circulating hearsay are the ones who never check the sources. Their sources use themselves as sources, it all circles back to the gossip ring. It takes too much effort to do the work of making sure they’re not spreading the bad bait, so they repeat the talk of fools and draw their curtains in a little closer.

“Don’t respond to the stupidity of a fool. You’ll only look foolish yourself.”

Your time is too precious to have to sift through that much nonsense. Set yourself up to not have to waste it. Don’t engage. It’s designed to create divisions, so engaging with the foolishness ensures the divisions. Let it pass. Not because it’s hopeless, but because you serve a God who is bigger than the weirdness of this life.

When I talk to people about the downfalls of organized religion, I often find myself in the company of people who have their own anitreligion religion. If that makes sense… I’m talking about people who create their identity, form their own language, and get really intense about being antireligious purists and rejecting organized religion. I am someone who will move when it feels honest to move. I don’t feel the obligation to perform procedural behavior just because it’s a Christian behavioral norm, so that makes me look a little more liberal than I actually am. It also, strangely, makes me look more religious than I actually am.

I recognize and even respect that there is an important role in the sense of community that people find when they go to church. As an introvert, I spaz out a little at the thought of obligated social interaction. Especially when it pertains to something so vulnerable and, consequently, emotionally charged as faith and spirituality. I acknowledge the need for the organization, especially for people who don’t necessarily read their Bible on their own. I’m not saying that all people who go to church don’t actually read their Bible. I’m positive there are lots out there. But, sadly, far too many don’t.

It’s like the people who are most politically vocal around major elections don’t even vote when the election day arrives. Being religiously vocal around religious topics is no guarantee that the person talking actually reads his or her Bible. It’s strange to hear people bring up the sins of others to neutralize or diminish their own. They wouldn’t need Jesus if that logic worked. It’s unsettling to hear someone talk about the grace of Jesus in the context of their obviously sinful lifestyle. The grace of Jesus doesn’t allow sin, it changes the identity of the sinner. The people who claim to be Christians, but deny Him in everything else are both in the church building every single Sunday and out of it. Both butcher the words of people who are on their own journey toward Truth and make every path look like a path full of hypocrites.

Going to church doesn’t make a person a Christian. It’s not even a criteria. However, in some countries and cultures, it’s a hard fought gift. In others it’s a right of passage. For many, it’s a break from the rest of their lives, and for others it’s their job. I don’t downplay the experience because of what it means to so many people. The worship and the camaraderie are two of the highlights I hear people talk about the most. When you refrain from the pressure to perform and when you resist the trap to conform, don’t make antireligion your religion. If the over production of the sacred is what keeps you from standing near the fog machine, then accept that within yourself without judging someone else’s love for the entertainment. Don’t bad mouth people just because their journey looks different than yours. Antireligion is not better than religion and religion is not better than anti. However, freedom is better than any of it because that’s what Jesus won. Your choice is your freedom, just like their’s is their’s.